TRUE cost of health tourism: Foreigners cost NHS up to £2BN a year

United Kingdom: stamp (Photo credit: Sem Paradeiro)

NHS Job Shop: “Working for Health” in Kentish Town. Closed. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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This is an important, MUST READ, article from the Mail Online. It’s a RECOMMENDED READ. Check it out!

TRUE cost of health tourism: Foreigners cost NHS up to £2BN a year | Mail Online.

As I read the article, my mind immediately raced to questions about the evidence under-pinning this important policy change. See my blog yesterday about evidence-based policy. Even the Mail picks up the thread after grabbing the headline with the big number.

For me, this is more UK Government meddling with the NHS, whilst UK public healthcare continues to deteriorate.

Let me turn to to an open question:

Rather than increasing the

OOPS! (Photo credit: Byzantine_K)

NHS bureaucracy, surely the UK Government would be wiser to complete a strategic review of the UK’s public healthcare, compared to best practice in countries like Germany, France and Italy?

Any thoughts?

Dr Alf raises serious points about the NHS and the Daily Mail and the Government probably both underestimate the scale of the problem.
To begin with the population is at least 70 million people which includes 5 million illegal immigrants that we know are here from looking at the amount of food sold in supermarkets and the number of notes and coins in circulation plus school admissions of children whose parents are undocumented.
E-Borders which was supposed to “count people in and out ” of the country is not operational after 10 years and the money needed to fix it will not be made available any time soon.
Are we seriously suggesting that all these illegal immigrants are refusing to register with doctors or see them for emergencies,have never had accidents requiring a hospital visit and treat themselves?
The proposition is clearly nonsense so the Daily Mail is not in a position to say whether the true figure is £2 billion gbp and no-one can argue that the true figure is any less and that the Daily Mail is scaremongering.
There are 19 million spare NI numbers available to new workers and also available in downmarket pubs for a few hundred pounds.
Frank Field MP when working for Tony Blair and tasked with “thinking the unthinkable”said that the system was riddled with fraud and should be abolished and that a new set of NI numbers should be issued after everyone in the country was personally interviewed by Home Office officials.
Tony Blair promptly sacked him and to this day no Government has chosen to revisit the system which means that no-one really knows exactly how many people live in the UK.
Dr Alf likes to talk about “evidenced based policies” and as a former Financial Director from corporate life would expect such evidence to be based on real numbers.
Sadly he will go on being disappointed.
This is unlike the days of Enoch Powell when Powell, as a member of Ted Heath,s Government was able to identify and comment on the extent and nature of their jerrymandering of the figures by the Home Office in order to conceal from the British people what was actually going on.
Like Frank Field who came long after him ,Enoch Powell was sacked for his trouble with the reason given as the “Rivers of Blood ” speech.
Today we have a Home Office that is not fit for purpose and by a mixture of incompetence and mendacity has lost control of our borders.
It does not know who is in the country or how many have come or who has a right to stay.
The NHS as the largest employer in Europe already has too many people and is an economic “basket case” living on borrowed time and money ,crying out for radical reform.
Whether the figure for treating foreigners is £2 billion gbp as the Daily Mail says we will never know.

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JOHN A GELMINI says:

October 22, 2013 at 8:55 am

Dr Alf raises serious points about the NHS and the Daily Mail and the Government probably both underestimate the scale of the problem.
To begin with the population is at least 70 million people which includes 5 million illegal immigrants that we know are here from looking at the amount of food sold in supermarkets and the number of notes and coins in circulation plus school admissions of children whose parents are undocumented.
E-Borders which was supposed to “count people in and out ” of the country is not operational after 10 years and the money needed to fix it will not be made available any time soon.
Are we seriously suggesting that all these illegal immigrants are refusing to register with doctors or see them for emergencies,have never had accidents requiring a hospital visit and treat themselves?
The proposition is clearly nonsense so the Daily Mail is not in a position to say whether the true figure is £2 billion gbp and no-one can argue that the true figure is any less and that the Daily Mail is scaremongering.
There are 19 million spare NI numbers available to new workers and also available in downmarket pubs for a few hundred pounds.
Frank Field MP when working for Tony Blair and tasked with “thinking the unthinkable”said that the system was riddled with fraud and should be abolished and that a new set of NI numbers should be issued after everyone in the country was personally interviewed by Home Office officials.
Tony Blair promptly sacked him and to this day no Government has chosen to revisit the system which means that no-one really knows exactly how many people live in the UK.
Dr Alf likes to talk about “evidenced based policies” and as a former Financial Director from corporate life would expect such evidence to be based on real numbers.
Sadly he will go on being disappointed.
This is unlike the days of Enoch Powell when Powell, as a member of Ted Heath,s Government was able to identify and comment on the extent and nature of their jerrymandering of the figures by the Home Office in order to conceal from the British people what was actually going on.
Like Frank Field who came long after him ,Enoch Powell was sacked for his trouble with the reason given as the “Rivers of Blood ” speech.
Today we have a Home Office that is not fit for purpose and by a mixture of incompetence and mendacity has lost control of our borders.
It does not know who is in the country or how many have come or who has a right to stay.
The NHS as the largest employer in Europe already has too many people and is an economic “basket case” living on borrowed time and money ,crying out for radical reform.
Whether the figure for treating foreigners is £2 billion gbp as the Daily Mail says we will never know.

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